Abstract: Marine currents have the potential to generate a large proportion of the UK's energy requirements. However, there is at present little exploitation of marine energy within the UK, although there are several devices currently under development, including tidal stream turbines.
The performance of a tidal stream turbine is dependent on a number of site specific factors including the bathymetry of the site and the variation of the tidal current, both temporally and within the water column. A combined computational fluid dynamics (CFD) - blade element method (BEM) model is presented in this paper which enables engineers to predict the performance of tidal stream turbines at a chosen location using site specific data.
This model is validated using a tow tank experiment and the computational results show some agreement with the experimental data.
